After receiving orders from the Japanese military headquarters, the Japanese and puppet garrison troops in Shouyang, Yangquan, and Tanxian County quickly responded to the dilemma of the three cities being besieged from the outside by a detachment of the Eighth Route Army, the granaries and material depots being burned, and the logistics shortage.
Take action.
Take Yangquan as an example.
A large number of Japs from the Gendarmerie in the county, as well as Japs from the Puppet Army Garrison, including some traitors, were divided into multiple groups and dispatched quickly.
The target goes directly to residents in the county.
According to the message conveyed by the Japs Headquarters, these little Japs are quite well prepared.
The Japanese are also cunning. They are worried that if the news is revealed in advance, the Chinese people will hide the food and supplies in advance, making it difficult to search.
So the Japanese and puppet troops launched a "surprise war".
The notice to raise food for the garrison in the city was not posted in advance.
Instead, those die-hard traitors and puppet soldiers were the vanguard, leading temporary food collection teams to break into people's homes directly from door to door.
A certain household.
"Boss, what are you doing?"
The middle-aged man who spoke is the owner of this house. He is considered a big household in this area. In order to gain a foothold in the city, he often curry favor with the Japanese and puppet troops.
But he never expected that at this critical moment, if the Japanese wanted to seize food, they would not let anyone go.
"Mr. Qian, the situation is like this. The Eighth Route Army is currently besieging our Yangquan County, and they took the opportunity to send teams to burn down the food and supplies that were originally hoarded for our people in our county.
This has caused logistical supply difficulties for the imperial army, so we want to borrow some food from the common people."
"But please don't worry, Taijun said that these grains were borrowed by Taijun, not from you.
Taijun is willing to issue an IOU. When the subsequent reinforcements of grain are delivered, the military rations collected from you will still be returned to you!"
"吆西!" The Japanese lieutenant who accompanied the food collection nodded.
"No, Taijun, you don't recognize me? I am Qian San'er! I usually send food to our imperial army. You can't do this kind of thing like crossing the river and burning down the bridge!"
Qian San is confused, but he is not stupid.
What's this about issuing IOUs to collect grain? If the grain is taken away by the little devils, how can there be any reason to return it?
After repeated excuses, the Japanese lieutenant became angry, "Baga!"
He kicked Qian San to the ground and shouted: "If you pay me all the food, if you don't give me food, I will work to death!"
Just like that, a group of Japanese and puppet troops forcibly stole several hundred kilograms of grain from Qian San's family.
Now the Japanese have tasted the sweetness.
Good guy, this family just robbed hundreds of kilograms of grain. There are tens of thousands of households in Yangquan County just in the central area of the county. How much grain does it have to rob?
Speaking of which, wouldn't the entire Yangquan garrison's food shortage problem be solved in one fell swoop?
After leaving Qian San's home, the grain collection team composed of Japanese and puppet troops continued to search from house to house.
It's just that the next action doesn't seem to be as smooth as the little devil imagined.
Big investors like Qian San are another matter.
In an ordinary house, as soon as the door is opened, the house seems to be completely bare, and there are not even a few pieces of furniture in sight. Before the little devil and the puppet army took action, the owner of the house was already crying and complaining: p>
"Grain collection? Taijun, we usually collect a lot of taxes, but we paid them all without missing a cent. This year we encountered a famine again, how can we have any food in the house? We can't open the pot for a long time! <
/p>
We are still waiting for the imperial army to help our people and distribute some relief food!"
The old lady who took the lead cried so hard that her eyes filled with tears and she was filled with sadness.
The sudden scene completely stunned the Japanese lieutenant.
The squad leader of the puppet army searched the dilapidated house several times with his men, but failed to find any food. He had to return with a grimace and said in the ear of the Japanese lieutenant: "Taijun, let's change to another family?" This family is so poor and has no food!"
The Japanese lieutenant nodded and ordered to leave.
After the Japanese and puppet troops left, the old lady quickly blocked the outer door completely, for fear that the Japs and the puppet troops would come back again.
The Japanese and puppet army's grain collection team continued to collect grain.
But then they entered seven or eight households in a row. What surprised the Japanese and puppet soldiers was that just like the old lady, their house was bare and they didn't find much food in the house.
The so-called military rations were collected from seven or eight families, and they only got less than half a catty of black beans, and nothing else.
The Japanese were dumbfounded.
"Asshole, how could this happen?"
The squad leader of the puppet army comforted him and said: "Taijun, it's no wonder they are there. Many of these people are already poor. Didn't they just encounter another drought this year? They don't have any extra food."
The Japanese lieutenant cursed a lot and had no choice but to be patient and continue searching house to house.
But what he didn't expect was that during the subsequent grain collection operation, the people in each household seemed to be infected by the disease of poverty.
Every household can’t take the pot anymore!
Everyone is extremely poor!
In the morning, we entered hundreds of households to collect military rations. In the end, only some wealthy pro-Japanese businessmen who were usually close to the Japs were found. Some grains were found in the homes of large families.
In addition, ordinary households basically do not receive any food from their homes.
The first food collection team, led by the Japanese lieutenant and composed of a squad of puppet soldiers, returned in vain.
It took a whole day to collect less than 2,000 kilograms of grain.
When the Japanese Lieutenant returns, he will report the food collection situation to his superiors.
Only then did I realize that the other Japanese officers responsible for collecting food all had sad faces.
The situation reported seems to be similar to his first trip.
"Sir, except for some wealthy families, ordinary people live in poverty. We have searched several times and found no excess food!"
The Japanese officers responsible for collecting food reported one by one.
Nanbu Toshio, the captain of the Japanese Military Police who was in charge of this food collection, sighed with emotion after hearing the reports from various food collection teams: "I didn't know that all the people in Yangquan were already so poor?"
A Japanese officer thought very quickly, "Sir, I wonder if these unscrupulous people deliberately hid the food at home and were unwilling to hand it over to the imperial army?"
Nanbu Toshio suddenly realized it, and then he looked cold and ordered: "In this way, send me the plainclothes team and keep a close eye on every household.
Especially at noon, when smoke comes out of their chimneys, they rush into the house directly. I want to see if these unscrupulous people have anything to eat."
"Hi!"
At noon, there are many houses with smoke rising from their chimneys as usual.
The plainclothes team of the Japanese and puppet troops who had been lurking in the dark early in the morning immediately rushed to the house where the smoke was rising, then forced the door open and broke in.
"Boss, boss, what are you doing?"
"Stop talking nonsense, you Zhang Laosan. When you came here in the morning, you told Taijun that there was no food at home. Now there is smoke coming out of the chimney. I want to see how big you are.
How dare you deceive the imperial army!"
A group of Japanese and puppet plainclothes troops broke into the kitchen without any explanation.
I thought these unscrupulous people hid the food and secretly cooked and ate it themselves.
As a result, the Japanese and puppet soldiers broke into the kitchen and took a closer look. There was nothing in the pot that they thought was fragrant.
There was only a small dark half of the pot, and the smell of sauerkraut and wild vegetables seemed to come out of it from time to time.
"Here, what is this? Is this for human consumption?"
The old man who replied had a bitter look on his face: "Boss, the Imperial Army pays a lot of miscellaneous taxes, and it's not like you don't know the situation.
How can ordinary people like us have any food?
Some black beans, some wild vegetables, and tree leaves are boiled into porridge. It will be good if you can survive for a few days without starving to death!"
It turns out that there was only a small amount of black beans in the pot, plus some wild vegetables and edible tree leaves, and they were put together to make a pot of messy porridge.
In the eyes of the Japanese and puppet soldiers, this kind of food may not even be eaten by pigs.
The Japanese and puppet troops could only return disappointed.
The same is true for other investigations. I thought that under the rising smoke, these cunning and unscrupulous people were secretly eating good food.
The result is mostly black beans, bran, wild vegetables, leaves, etc.
The surprise inspection failed.
After the news was passed back to the gendarmerie, the Japanese officer who originally thought that these unscrupulous people in Yangquan County had deliberately hidden the food stopped talking.
Nanbu Toshio is also helpless. This time, according to the clever plan given by the Commander, if enough food can be collected from these common people, the problem of food shortage for the defenders will definitely be solved.
But who would have thought that the people in Yangquan would be so poor.
It’s good if we don’t expect them to be supported by the imperial army. How can we have any extra food?
In the end, there was nothing he could do. The frustrated Nanbu Toshio calmed down and ordered: "Whatever you can do is better!"
Tomorrow we will continue to collect military rations. Ordinary people are too poor, so we will collect as much as we can. We will target those big households and wealthy businessmen."
The Japanese officer expressed hesitation: "It's just...sir, most of these big families are close to the imperial army, so wouldn't this offend them all?"
Nanbu Toshio snorted coldly: "In special times, we can't control so much. The worst we can do is give them an IOU first!"
"Hi!"
"In addition, post the notice for me and put all the blame on Tubal Road.
I made it clear in the notice that it was because the Eighth Route Army burned the food that the Imperial Army had hoarded for the people, so the Imperial Army had to collect military rations from the people to defend the county and the land where the people lived."
"Hi!"
In the end, the Japanese headquarters proposed a massive grain collection operation in the three cities of Shouyang, Yangquan and Tan County. However, most of the food collected came from those pro-Japanese factions.
Ordinary people have not suffered much disaster.
Night falls quickly...
Around twelve o'clock in the morning, the entire Yangquan County fell into deathly silence.
Only the cold current surges in the dark.
The entire land covered with heavy snow seemed lifeless.
Suddenly there were some rustling noises in the house. The old lady took advantage of the night to skillfully take out a match from the old drawer and then struck it. The weak fire light dispersed the surrounding darkness and lit the old lady in front of her.
There was a bright light, and she lit a kerosene lamp next to the foot of the table.
"Master, let the kids get up and get ready to turn on the stove!"
"Hey!"
The old man responded, got up from the bed, quickly put on his clothes, and then went to the side room to wake up his grandson and granddaughter.
Using the faint light from a kerosene lamp, the family quietly reached the windowless kitchen and lit the fire.
In the dark and snowy night, smoke rises slowly from the chimney.
The aunt took out half a scoop of millet from the food hidden in the cellar, and then cooked some millet porridge with some pickles to fill the children's stomachs again.
While drinking millet porridge, the old man sighed: "Old lady, thanks to the comrades of the Eighth Route Army who told us the news in advance, if we had managed to save some food this year, I would have all been robbed by the little devils!"<
/p>
The aunt agreed: "That's right, these black-hearted little devils, they have no food to eat, so they come to rob us!
When I went to the market during the day, I saw notices posted everywhere in the alley!
A gentleman who can read it read it, and I also heard some words. The little devil poured dirty water on the head of the Eighth Route Army!
It's all to blame for the Eighth Route Army burning the grain that their little devils had saved for us people in the granary, and then they asked for food from us people.
Master, listen to this, is this human speech?
When will it be our turn to eat the food that the little devils put in the warehouse?"
"That's right, the little devil is fooling the fool!
Only a ghost can believe it!
Let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s take the time to get full, so we can go back to bed and sleep. Tomorrow we will continue to take out the black beans and rotten sweet potatoes, cook them in the pot, and fool the little devils. We can’t let the devils know that we still have food!
”
It turns out that the little devil's action of forcibly requisitioning military rations was a step too late after all.
Kong Jie, who guessed in advance that the Japanese were desperate to jump over the wall and rob people of food stored in their homes, asked comrades lurking in Shouyang, Yangquan, and Tan County to secretly pass the news on to the people.
It also gave the common people "guerrilla" tactics to deal with the little devils:
Hide all the food and supplies at home in the most hidden place in advance.
There is a hidden cellar. If that is not feasible, it is possible to dig a pit in the yard and bury it.
When the Japanese and puppet troops came, they called them poor. There was no way to open the pot, and the poor people jingled... The more miserable the better.
Leave less food at home and let the Japanese and puppet soldiers snatch it away. Then make trouble with them and howl with them!
The Japanese and puppet troops did not grab any food, so they would probably still have doubts after leaving.
So at noon, I would get some wild vegetables, leaves, roots, etc. to fool the little devil and make him completely believe that there was no extra food at home.
When it was late at night and the Japanese were no longer on guard, the people secretly took out the food to eat.
So what happened in the old lady’s house in the dead of night is just a microcosm of the thousands of ordinary people living in Shouyang, Yangquan and Tan counties.
Using this special guerrilla tactic, the common people successfully preserved the precious food reserves at home...